Touch of the Trachemys 1
by mamabot
Summary: April/Raphael If they were fooling anyone, they were the fools. Once it comes out though, the Hamato family is very pleased. Marriage is not perfect though. Sometimes the hardest truth is admitting your own fears to yourself. It's very hard to deal with your own fears let alone help the other. But, you find a way. (miscarriage)


**Touch of the Trachemys 1**

 **{G1 + 2014 movie= my own AU}**

 **TMNT copyright Mirage & Nickelodeon.**

If April and Raphael thought they were fooling anyone, they were the fools. But out of respect for the couple's privacy, no one said anything. Amazingly even Mikey has managed to keep it to himself. Subtlety is the least of Mike's traits, no matter how he tries, but for Raphael's heart and April's friendship, he tries extra hard to ignore they are in love. To do so, he leads on that he knows Raphael and April are private confidant-friends and teases them mercilessly so.

Of course Raphael just has to roll his eyes and ignore those jabs. Him have a soft shell around his heart? HA! Anytime there is a tease that Raph needs April's shoulder to cry on or couch to spill his inner insecurities to, the bravado comes out and Mikey is running for his life!

Leonardo worries for his friend and has told Master Splinter this. It's bad enough that April fell in love with someone undercover but even more so, a non-human. Leo is very worried that their hearts will be broken by either biological-fate or by their species and lifestyle becoming too much of strain for them to stay together. He cares for them both very much, and he can not bear the thought of losing either of their friendships or watching them become broken: individually or as a couple.

Splinter can understand Leo's concerns very much. He's has his own fleeting worries in this area as well, but there is something more Leo doesn't see and tries to help him see a bigger picture. Mikey is so footloose that he wouldn't know what to do with a stable relationship and it will be a miracle if he could ever pin himself down to just one person. He's just too excited to explore and taste it all! It brings Michelangelo pleasure to see his tough friend have someone to share his heart with. With so much uncertainty in the world, Raphael and April having someone they can lean on gives Mikey and Donny strength.

Leo nods into the wisdom Splinter explains to him. He hadn't thought of it that way before. It does lessen his worries for his brother and friend, but doesn't make it go completely away.

And this is what concerns Splinter: After he passes on, Raphael will have April. Donatello will have his science and discovery, Michelangelo will have the whole world to keep him energized, but Leo will have no one. If there is anyone who needs a mate, it's Leo.

Splinter leaves Leo to meditate and heads off to check on Donatello. As Red Eared Sliders they would have lived about thirty to forty years, which would be fine with a human's own average life expectancy. Now that they have mutated, their lives could be dramatically shorter or expanded to that of their cousins the tortoises. Their life expectancy is one of Donatello's many experiments. This particular investigation he has kept silent from the others, except for Splinter.

Splinter sits down next to Donatello. "How is it going, my son?"

Donny pulls back from his microscope and rubs his eyes. "Frustrating. I know there is something else I should be looking at, but it's eluding me, therefore driving me absolutely crazy."

CRASH! Breaks through his thoughts followed by:

"MIKEY!" Raphael's roar through their little underground home.

Just as Donatello's door bursts open, the orange masked turtle dashes through. "Hide me!" he whispers and shuts the door behind himself.

"What did you do?" Both Donny and Splinter say at the same time.

That does make the panting one scowl and then eyes shoot wide as the heaviest of the turtle brothers can be heard heading this way. "When I find you, Michael-ANGELO you will BE and angel!"

"Oh crap!" Mikey scoots under a table covered with spare parts.

"What did you do?" They both ask again in stereo which makes them laugh lightly.

"Um, well… they were laughing together like I'd never heard either of them laugh before and I just wanted to see what-"

BAM! the door bursts open with a very angry bareheaded turtle stomping in. His loin-belt is on skewed which immediately answers the rest of Michelangelo's confession. He pulls a sai from the belt, "Come out you little peeping-creep!"

Mikey whimpers from under the table which brings a cruel lift to Raph's lip. But before he can take one step, Splinter lays a soft paw to the angry wrist. Raphael turns to his mentor sucking in a deep breath. He is going to have to explain his anger to his Sensei and that would mean revealing his intimacy with April. That is something he is not ready to discuss with anyone. It's bad enough that Mikey caught them in the nude, but he really doesn't want to say anymore.

So he sadly lowers his angry hand and snarls to the table. "Stay out of my den!" With that he turns on a heel and shuts the door behind himself. If Mikey tells Donny and Splinter then that is actually a relief to him, because there is no way he wants admit to anyone but April he is in love. Not even to his dear sweet father.

It saddens Splinter that Raphael will not tell him this secret, but in due time he is sure he will. For now though, there is Mikey to deal with.

"Michelangelo, leave Raphael alone. He deserves his privacy, doesn't he?"

Mikey, with Donny's help gets out from under the table. He remains sitting on the floor, looking up to Splinter. He can see a sadness in the old rat's eyes. It's not because he and Raphael are scuffling again, but something deeper. He saw the whiskers droop when Raph left the room without saying anything to him about the fight. Mikey might be goofy, but he knows his family well enough to know those looks. It's breaking Splinter's heart that he can't share in the joy of Raphael being in love.

So his own head droops. "Yes, Father."

"Good, now why don't you go do a little meditating with Leo."

Mikey knows that is not a suggestion either, so he nods again and rises carefully. No need to tick off Donny as well by making a mess of his private quarters like he did to Raphael's romantic moment.  
As he gets to the door, he reaches back and gives Splinter's paw a squeeze. "It's not just a fling with them, Splinter. They really do care about each other."

Splinter pats his hand and gives him a good smile. "Thank you, Michelangelo." Then he squeezes real tight, "But leave them alone."

Mikey grimaces and whimpers. "Yeah, got it." The hand is released and he heads out.

Splinter sighs heavily again as the door closes. Donatello ponders what to say for a few moments before he finally speaks. "I'm just glad he's in love. He deserves it and April deserves someone who is going to treat her right. If Raph breaks her heart though, I'll kill him."

That does pique the rat's brows. "Do you want to tell me something, Donatello?"

Donatello looks away to fiddle with his microscope. His name is said again more softly this time which means he will have to answer. "I had a crush on her, and I'm glad she's happy, and I'm REALLY glad my brother is happy…." He gives a soft shrug going back to his experiment.

Splinter gives his sweet son a rub to his neck. "You are both a good friend and a good brother. I have faith that someday all of you will find someone special."  
Donny's cheeks flush deep. "Yeah, I do, too." That gives Splinter's heart a lift. Donny is not jealous, just very protective and hiding his own secret.

* * *

~~0~~

Raphael makes his way back to his den where he had left April naked under his blanket and in his bed. That brings a rather rakish grin to his face and more studdly rock to the hips in his stride.

He gives a rap to the door that is their code and then pushes it open. It's the same one he uses on her apartment window so she won't shoot him as an intruder. Softly he closes it behind himself and begins to remove his belt. "Now where were we before we got so rudely interrupted?"

"I'm sorry, Raphael, I got to go." She gives him a kiss to the cheek and reaches for the doorknob. "I forgot I was meeting Vern and Casey for breakfast."

Raph's hand lays softly on hers and he lowers his head begging her to look him in the eyes. She does. "Are…we okay? Mikey didn't ruin us, did he?"

April slips her hand out from under his so that she can wrap both arms around his waist and bring her chin up to touch his. "Mikey can never ruin us. If anything, his interruption made me think of something."

That brings his eyes a little brighter. "I want a place of our own. Not too far from your family of course, but I want more for us. I hate being at 'my place' or 'your room'. I want OUR place where we can rummage in the fridge in the buff if we want."

Raphael's whole body sighs with relief and a huge grin comes out. "You know, Donny was just saying the city is planning to do renovations down here soon, and it's time for us to find a new place."

"And that is exactly why I am going to meet with Vern and Casey. There's an investment opportunity we are looking into together that may benefit all of us." She leans up and presses a kiss to his lips, "Most certainly you and I."

His eyes go dark and he gently pushes her away from himself, "Then by all means, you best not be late."

April giggles and then gives him a last warm kiss. "I'll give you a call later, Soft Shell." For that he gives her a light swat to her rump as she escapes his den.

* * *

~~0~~

It's a few weeks later and April has Raphael meet her in an industrial warehouse basement. The basement is well over three thousand square feet. A spiral staircase halfway down one side wall. A huge conduit of wires coming down into another corner. On the floor are lines of tape that indicate where walls will go, and industrial size kitchen equipment. There's even an area mapped out for weight training and dojo. A bonsai tree has already been set on a beautiful bamboo crate in another taped off section.

Rising above the basement is a huge building easily eight stories with at least three industrial freight elevators. Raphael looks around the basement and then back to April.

"Is this what I think it is?"

She takes his hand and leads him over to a corner by the weight room. Larger than a king size bed is a solid cement platform with a very healthy pile of padding on top of it. "What do you think of your new den?"  
He pats the padding and gives her a smile, "Is this so my bed won't creak?"

April laughs giving him a shove so that he lands on his shell and she crawls over the top of him. "OUR bed."

He laughs with her and then cups her cheek turning serious. "I like the sound of that a lot."

"I hope you don't mind, but I've been talking to Donny a lot about this because I want to make sure it has the specks he needs for all of his equipment."

Raph continues to stroke her cheek. "Does he know about us?"

That makes her chew on her lip for a moment and then admit, "He said we are the fools if we thought we were fooling anyone. Long before Mikey caught us."

Who knew so much air could be released from the large turtle. "Thank the stars." He doesn't have to tell April out loud, she knows he just can't admit to them, but it's alright if they already know.

She takes him for a tour around the sketched out area. Then with dusk coming, she leads him up a ramp to the back of the property. There more construction has stopped for the day. Hand in hand they walk out to the man-made pond with trees being planted.

"This area used to be industrial manufacturing. But times change, companies go under or move over seas. Buildings go into disrepair and need to be demolished. Others are still useable, and get converted. The building we are in is going to be a storage units and they need an onsite manager. They said I could have the whole basement as my living quarters and the building inspector has already approved. I told them I would need the extra electronics for sound studio for animated voice-overs and also movie editing. Plus I'm not completely giving up my news career. Thinking about opening an online site, maybe."

"You are a very clever one, April O'Neil," he gives her hand a squeeze.

"Well I found out about this because of a fluff piece I was supposed to do about this." She waves a hand out to the pond. "The guy who owns this property, got this area rezoned to be a wildlife rescue. It will be a semi wild place where injured or maimed animals will have a safe place to live. He knew that a storage unit would bring in enough money for him to fund the animals' needs and would be low impact."

Raph wraps an arm around her shoulder and holds her close. "Father will like it here."

Her hand slides over his plastron to stop over his heart. "I'm going to like it here."

"Mikey?"

"There's the old sewer system, but considering so many of the buildings here have been removed, it's going to smell a lot nicer. We are far enough away to have our privacy, but close enough with underground transportation to still be here for the community."

"I love you, April O'Neil," he leans in and kisses her under the setting sun.

~~00~~

It takes a few more weeks, but finally they are ready to moved in permanently. Mikey looks around the place a little excited to be the one to broach the elephant in the room that no one speaks of. "So, April, you keeping your old apartment and giving this to us?"

Now comes the moment of truth. Everyone knows, and everyone knows that everyone knows, but it's time to lift the taboo conversation. Raph steps up to April and lifts her hand to his lips while pulling something from under the mask band from beside his temple. To everyone's shock, including April's, he lowers himself to one knee holding up a ring.

What no one else can see and she can barely see through the tears of joy dribbling down her cheek, is a wide gold band with a emerald set deep just barely rising above the band. It's not cut in exactly a standard 'emerald cut'. It's in a turtle shell's cut and engraved into the band is a turtle's head, legs and even a tiny tail. Set into the turtle's head are two tiny garnet chips for eyes. Raphael's red marking. Where a red slider would have his red stripes are tiny bits of rose-gold.

Sweet laugher bubbles up from her chest with a few more tears slipping out. She pulls a large gold band out from her jeans pocket. "I-I was going to ask you."

He can see the band has thin strips of diamonds that are set deep into the band. They are arranged to form the Japanese characters for her name made out of her birthstone. This much gold and even those diamonds must have cost her so much. Still she would give it all up for him. Look at what she did about this place so that he can be close to his family and yet make room for them as mates?!

"So I take that as a yes?" He chokes, sniffs and smiles to her making it official in front of his family. She viciously nods her head and splays her fingers so he can slip the ring on. Then he holds his own up and she slips the band onto his middle finger.

Donny and Leo high-three over the top of Mikey's beaming smile. Still oblivious to the others in the room, Raphael rises up and embraces his mate snuggly. Splinter comes over and strokes both of their cheeks giving them his fatherly blessing. It might not be any kind of a formal ceremony, but it means all the same to this family.

"I will take your brothers to make sure the old place has no traces of us while you get a moment of blissful privacy."

Raph shakes his head softly, "Oh we will be having more of our own privacy, that's for sure. Donny and I have talked about it! Our den will be Mikey proof."

"Nothing is Mikey-proof," Leo snorts.

"My heart is," April says from the safety of Raphael's arms. Michelangelo lowers his head in soft respect for April, he will not violate her privacy with her mate. "Thank you, all."

Splinter gives her a kiss the forehead and Raphael lowers his to receive his own. Splinter then calls the other brothers away. They each give Raph and April their blessing hugs as they head out down the underground tunnel.

"We have the place to ourselves tonight, my love." She reaches up and pulls him down for a deep kiss.

"Yes," it's a deep churr with a promise to make their first night as official mates memorable. With just the slightest of dips to his knee, he scoops her up into his arms and carries her to their private room, shutting and locking the door from the inside. "Welcome home."


End file.
